(Concluded from page 291.)
It is the exercise by the Spirit of a sound mind, not that which would judge from results on the probable bearing of anything in given circumstances. Let us beware of its counterfeit and mere unbelief—the keeping out of God, but ever bring Him in, as the One in Whose hand are results, as paramount to the circumstances of human infirmity. Soundness of mind must necessarily appear folly in the estimation of the world; “but wisdom is justified of her children.” It is a subject of deep humiliation in us all to see how far we come short of this soundness of mind, by conferring with flesh and blood; acting it may be on a right motive at first, but with a wrong expectation, which leads to the employment of means not justified, and to disappointment. Nothing can be more contrary to soundness of mind than the results which have been and are, perhaps by many, expected from modern missionary exertions. The conduct of them and expectations from them have brought about a most morbid state of religious excitement, mistaken spirituality, and have tended to conceal the real destitution of the church, and to make her say, “I am rich and increased with goods,” when her very necessity which has driven her to seek help from the world is the saddest proof of decrepitude.
It will not be out of place to notice here the expression in Rom. 8, “To be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace,” ver. 6, φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς, φρόνημα τοῦ πνεύματος. The words of the preceding verse, οἱ κατὰ σάρκα τὰ τῆς σαρκὸς φροωοῦσιν, &c., plainly show that a spiritual mind is not an improvement of the natural mind: let this be cultivated to any extent of intellectual attainment, it still only fulfills “the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Eph. 2). It is the portion alone of those who are κατὰ πνεῦμα. The things of the Spirit are not only out of the province of the natural mind, but foolishness unto it (1 Cor. 2:1414But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)). Hence when Christianity has been treated as a science, and made the subject of mere intellect, being judged by those who are κατὰ σάρκα it has lost its real character. It is not that it may not call into exercise the highest intellect, for surely it well may; but when it is made the subject-matter of intellect, instead of intellect being subject unto it, men are “always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” They are ever exercising their art to establish it by evidence on which the flesh can rest, or else take up some of the deductions of esteemed theologians, instead of searching the scriptures themselves.
From this most profitless state the Spirit delivers: “as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God.” It is the Spirit of liberty; the children, free in their Father's house, have no longer the inquiry to make, “what is truth?” They have the witness in themselves, and desire to be guided into all truth. But the flesh would ever draw false inferences from revealed truth, even truth brought by the Spirit to the mind. We have a memorable instance of this in Peter (Matt. 16), drawing his own conclusion from the confession he had just made; but, says the Lord, οὐ φρονεῖς τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀλλὰ τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. A spiritual mind is that which at once perceives the bearing of anything on the glory of the Lord, this characteristically distinguishes it from refinement of sentiment. Thus it was in Jesus. He was of quick understanding (scent) in the fear of the Lord; by this He immediately saw the gist of Satan's temptations. They appear to the mere natural man as those which are morally harmlessly even as those which would have demonstrated His power, and turned to Satan's own confusion; but Jesus looked at them as bearing on His Father's honor.
We shall see this more strongly by contrast. There could not have seemed a conclusion for the church to come to more legitimate than that, when learning, rank, talent, influence (all of which had been united against her), fell before her, and were become her allies, she should then fill the world with blessing. But this was savoring not the things of God, but of men. The Spirit invariably leads to where Christ is. “If ye then be risen with Christ, “τὰ ἄνω φρονεῖτε, &c. It is ever the effort of the prince of this world to make us forget that the world is under the power of death, because it has rejected the Prince of life, that its judgment is only respited for the purpose of manifesting God's longsuffering, that all that is in the world, is not of the Father, and therefore He cannot be served by it. Hence οἱ τὰ ἐπίγεια φρονοῦντες are enemies of the cross of Christ. To be spiritually minded is life, is to have risen up out of all this death, is to know them as death, and to know Christ as the power of life. Nothing has had a more hurtful tendency in hindering present blessing and encouraging unwarrantable expectations, than the separation of the work of the Spirit from the glory of Christ, to Whom He invariably points. Hence in a great measure has arisen the notion that the personal reign of Christ during the millennium is returning to the flesh from the Spirit, and retrograding instead of advancing in blessing. But what is real blessing? One who is at all quickened by the Spirit, knows it to consist in the knowledge and consequent enjoyment of God. Therefore every advance in the manifestation of God is an accession of blessing to those really in communion with Him.
It is true that now to faith is revealed the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. “But the Son of man shall come in His own glory and in the glory of His Father,” &c. And His triumph is theirs, “every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus, and every tongue confess” Him. While then the joy of the saints will be full (“I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness”), how is this to be effected but by fresh energy of the Spirit? “If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” And while there is the display of the Spirit's power in the bodies of those who have received the first fruits of the Spirit, the great outpouring of the Spirit is coincident with this—the exhaustion of the promise in Joel, “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;” and the fulfillment of the new covenant in all its largeness to the Jew, in the very explicit language of Jer. 31 and Ezek. 36.
It seems much to have been forgotten that we have only had as yet the first fruits of the Spirit. The fall out-pouring is for another dispensation, which, as contrasted with this, is not fleshly as opposed to spiritual; but one of righteousness as opposed to grace. It is the manifestation of God's power in Christ over evil, so longed for by the still groaning creation. Here the evil in man's nature is restrained from fully developing itself in all by the secret power of God, and in the saints kept under by the indwelling of God's Spirit, God's judicial power being only now revealed against it (Rom. 1), but not as yet actually in exercise to this end. Then a King reigns in righteousness, having taken His power and bound Satan, the evil one, and “the way of iniquity shall perish.” Now liberty is given to evil, i e, man is left to himself (in dispensation at least), save that He Who is over all orders all, and makes “the wrath of man to praise Him.” But then God in the revealed power of the Son will not suffer it: “the soul that sinneth, it shall surely die;” “He shall destroy the works of the devil.”
In a word, we may say that the millennial dispensation is at least, as to the Jews upon earth, the combination of that in which both they have failed in theirs, and Christians in this—the full display of the Spirit on the heart and of earthly blessing in righteousness. So far from being unspiritual, the end of the millennial dispensation to which we are permitted to look (and surely it is written for our instruction) affords a fresh proof that man under every advantage of nearness to God, outward blessing, testimony of the word and past experience too, will assuredly fail, unless dwelt in by the Spirit of God. Then will be demonstrated publicly, that which the believer now knows experimentally, “that all flesh is grass “; that there is no real communion with God but by His Spirit; and that security is not “by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Those therefore who resist the testimony of God to the pre-millennial advent of Christ, and His reign with His saints perfectly conformed to His image in resurrection over the earth, are necessarily deprived of the instruction in a great moral truth respecting God. For He will thus be demonstrated to be the only One with Whom there is “no variableness neither shadow of turning,” by having proved the changeableness of the creature under every circumstance of blessing short of new creation. Nor is it uninstructive to notice that, in thus connecting the present with the dispensation which is on the eve of being introduced, we are carried on in the fullness of personal security and blessing, to learn in it more of God, yea, of the riches of His grace, in being the witnesses of another apostasy, under circumstances the most favorable for the creature to have stood. The Lord give us to know the exceeding great blessing of being brought to “stand in grace.” Amen.
J. L. H.